tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post8783495505802308622..comments2015-08-02T23:49:53.783+03:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Dogs were probably domesticated in the Near East rather than East AsiaDienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-30540600576534756942010-03-19T14:49:41.393+02:002010-03-19T14:49:41.393+02:00There was a fascinating documentary on dog evoluti...There was a fascinating documentary on dog evolution after domestication a couple of months back entitled &quot;Horizon: The Secret Life of the Dog&quot; (You Tube 6 parts - 1 hour in total)<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgL3uQvLNEs&amp;feature=related<br /><br />Some very interesting stuff, eg<br /><br />1/ dogs know to gauge human emotions by looking at the right side of our face. Which they dont do with other dogs because dog expressions are symmetrical. <br />(Very funny experiment showing dog doing this).<br /><br />2/ British dog owners understood perfectly a tape of Hungarian dogs&#39; repetoire of barks.<br /><br />3/and in part 4 or 5 a lot about the the Russian experiment trying to domesticate foxes to replicate the historical domestication of wolves to dogs.<br /><br />Been going on for 50 years (ie 50 generations), selectively breeding foxes for tameness. <br /><br />They are now dog-like, playing with humans, licking humans. But the process is still incomplete. If their human friend goes away they dont pine.<br /><br />But also, selecting for tameness (only) has led to a difference in appearance. The original Russian foxes were all grey, but now their descendants have variegated markings (eg white patches, etc) like dogs. This was completely unexpected and nobody has explained why it has happened.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05475298239568249939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-55539703170167427472010-03-19T07:51:10.961+02:002010-03-19T07:51:10.961+02:00I am always a skeptic when it comes to total repla...I am always a skeptic when it comes to total replacement theories. In addition to testing on remains, Europe would need to be scrutinized as closely as the African and Chinese villages. As I pointed out a while ago, AFAIK no one has gone into the remote villages of Romania, Slovakia, Russia or even less populated areas of western Europe etc. and tested local breeds similarly to other areas in the world.<br /><br />As to purpose, I think the first Europeans also benefited from the watchdog and fighting capabilities: when it was not feasible for the entire tribe/family to go hunting, and only the stronger men went out, it would have been up to the women, elderly, injured, and teenagers to defend the children and everyone left behind. Especially in small groups, that is a very difficult 24/7 task. Dogs would have alerted the group of danger for an early warning and would have been able to hold back intruders until the firm got their weapons ready.<br /><br />I agree of course that retrieval of injured hunted animals is a huge thing, given dog&#39;s acute sense of smell. With light spears, it is much easier to injure and weaken an animal than to kill it outright.eurologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-66142694973454625902010-03-18T23:42:28.343+02:002010-03-18T23:42:28.343+02:00The only satisfactory way to test my hypothesis of...The only satisfactory way to test my hypothesis of a total to near total extinction of ancient non-Middle Eastern wolf-descended dog breeds seems to be the ancient DNA testing of the Upper Palaeolithic dog remains.onurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-76205024857518178832010-03-18T22:32:52.666+02:002010-03-18T22:32:52.666+02:00Andrew, Onur,
I agree with the European extinctio...Andrew, Onur,<br /><br />I agree with the European extinction of early lineage dogs - and pointed out this a year or two ago, with that paper on Swedish dogs.<br /><br />In Scandinavia in general dogs have a distinctive mtDNA, which was believed to be ancestral to that area, until ancient dogs DNA was sequenced from the area, and found to be totally different. So it very likely that either Neolithic or Indo-Europeans brought newer dog breeds which wiped out most of the older ones.<br /><br />If I had to guess the older European dogs would be hunting dogs, while the newer ones would be herding, guard and fighting dogs.pconroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10312469574812832771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-889195455635900862010-03-18T22:13:12.696+02:002010-03-18T22:13:12.696+02:00Interesting study.
We can date the latest possibl...Interesting study.<br /><br />We can date the latest possible domestication of dogs in East Asia by the fact the dogs came with proto-Native Americans to the Americas, and by the approximate date of the arrival of the dingo in Australia deduced from fauna extinctions associated with the Dingo&#39;s arrival.<br /><br />Certainly, the archeological referrants mentioned in the study reaffirms the conclusion that dog domestication is pre-Neolithic. Thus, dogs are the first significant domesticate.<br /><br />The evidence that precludes multiple domestications isn&#39;t as clear as it might be. Indeed, it also seems like the study&#39;s authors actually argue for a small East Asian domestication in addition to a major Near Eastern domestication.<br /><br />onur&#39;s point about the possibility of a largely extinct early wave European domestication is a good one.Andrew Oh-Willekehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-71579557254661505352010-03-18T19:02:54.750+02:002010-03-18T19:02:54.750+02:00Hmm.
The &quot;associated to humans&quot; thing r...Hmm.<br />The &quot;associated to humans&quot; thing recalls something I once saw in a TV documentation about dogs and wolves.<br /><br />There they claimed that one remarkable difference between dog and wolf would be, that dogs are able to &quot;understand&quot; human facial expressions from birth. While wolves seem unable to learn them, even if grown up with humans and raised alongside dogs.<br /><br />Its possible to command dogs what to do, by pure movement of the eyes. A wolf suposedly is unable to learn this.<br /><br />They explained this with &quot;selection&quot; in breeding. <br /><br />And claimed, humans selected only those wolves as basic breeding material, that proved to be compatible to humans and intermixed them again and again with dogs that proved to be associated with humans and by this creating an artificial lifeform that exists in a symbiosis with the human race.<br /><br />In other words, dogs genetic setup is made to be a servant to humans.<br /><br />Well... on the other hand, have dogs proven to be able to survive without their master-race &quot;human&quot;.<br />See those &quot;Dingos&quot;, whos anchestors are dogs who ran with humans once.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07969348276219179258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-12352651712572864132010-03-18T16:29:46.378+02:002010-03-18T16:29:46.378+02:00There is one small set of East Asian breeds that d...<i><br />There is one small set of East Asian breeds that does not indicate a strong Middle East origin, showing instead a high level of genetic sharing with Chinese wolves. <br /></i><br /><br />This is exactly the point I have made over a year ago in term of African genetic diversity. Africa is seen as very diverse, due to there being a much older* population present and some admixture with it in Africa. This older population are the Bushmen (aka Khoi-San) and possibly also the Pygmies (aka Mbuti).<br /><br />* By older I mean, that they diverged from other early modern humans a long time ago - maybe 100k yo - and went down their own evolutionary path, and only with the Bantu expansion, have they admixed with other Africans again.pconroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10312469574812832771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-64535838291962094272010-03-18T15:10:34.825+02:002010-03-18T15:10:34.825+02:00Addendum: The old European dogs may have been desc...<b>Addendum:</b> The old European dogs may have been descended from European wolves, while the later Middle Eastern ones, which would replace them (according to my hypothesis), were descended from Middle Eastern wolves. So maybe there were multiple independent dog domestication events in various parts of the world during the Upper Palaeolithic, which would be obscured due to the advancement of the Neolithic colonizers from the Middle East, who carried the newly domesticated more human-friendly Middle Eastern dog breeds with them, eventually leading to the total or almost total replacement of all dog breeds unrelated to the Middle Eastern breeds. I say almost, because the genetic remains of non-Middle Eastern wolves in some still existing dog breeds maybe a remnant (at least partially) of the non-Middle Eastern domestication events I hypothesized.onurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-73919763695517726842010-03-18T13:31:55.212+02:002010-03-18T13:31:55.212+02:00They also say: &quot;We know that dogs from the Mi...They also say: &quot;We know that dogs from the Middle East were closely associated with humans because they were found in ancient human burial sites. In one case, a puppy is curled up in the arms of a buried human.&quot;<br /><br />So perhaps the old European dogs weren&#39;t so much closely associated with humans. But maybe afterwards a new set of dog breeds from the Middle East, which were more closely assoicated with humans, replaced (or almost replaced) all others, including the old European dogs.onurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-88017814129165351432010-03-18T12:40:50.745+02:002010-03-18T12:40:50.745+02:00So, what are they trying to say?
- Documented Eur...So, what are they trying to say?<br /><br />- Documented European dogs from ~30,000 years ago are descendants of middle-Eastern wolves;<br /><br />- the above dogs were replaced with new ones, descendant from middle-Eastern wolves; or<br /><br />- almost all dogs, at any time, are descendants of middle-Eastern wolves.<br /><br />I am a bit at a loss, here...eurologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.com